Financial consequences of losing admixed tree species: A new approach to value increased financial risks by ungulate browsing

Abstract

The influence of ungulates on the growth of young trees is amply discussed in forestry literature, particularly game browsing. Although there are a few appraisal methods that consider negative long-term influences on forest regeneration, hitherto no approach has addressed the financial consequences of lost admixed tree species. A homogenised species composition may lead to an increased financial risk of a forest. Based on financial return and risk ratios of mixed forests, this paper derives the financial compensation that would be necessary to make acceptable the increased risk of pure forest for forest owners. In this conceptual case study we consider a two-species mixed forest (Norway spruce, Picea abies

Does mixing tree species enhance stand resistance against natural hazards? A case study for spruce

“…This could for example be done by enhancing approaches like the ones by Rößiger et al (2011) or Clasen et al (2011 by improved empirical survival probabilities.…”

“…Here, models often not only ignore relevant factors like a possible compensation of financial risks between tree species (Clasen et al, 2011;Knoke and Wurm, 2006), they also regularly exclude the ecological effects of mixing tree species and the resulting biophysical consequences Pretzsch, 2009 …”

Optimizing silviculture in mixed uneven-aged forests to increase the recruitment of browse-sensitive tree species without intervening in ungulate population

“…Most of the studies in CCF applying OR methods have focused on financially optimal management or adapting business-as-usual timber production-oriented management to alternative scenarios that consider multiple objectives or constraints (Miina et al 2010, Ló-pez Torres et al 2016. Optimization has also been used in several bioeconomic models to propose financially optimal management under the presence of factors that decrease economic returns, such as large-scale disturbances (Hyytiäinen & Haight 2010), ungulates (Clasen et al 2011), changing timber price and tree growth (Pukkala 2015) or climate change (Lafond et al 2014). Optimization also proved to be useful for selecting the portfolio of tree species with the lowest risk (Griess & Knoke 2013).…”

Avoiding the loss of shade coffee plantations: how to derive conservation payments for risk-averse land-users

“…The effects of uncertainty on decision making have been analyzed in many fields of decision analysis (Bawa 1975;Machina 1987;Götze et al 2008), though analysis of this aspect is relatively novel in natural resource management (Kangas and Kangas 2004;Benítez et al 2006;Knoke et al 2008a;Knoke 2011, Clasen et al 2011).…”

“…Selected approaches to calculate conservation payments (CP) SD and MV are both methods that have been used for calculating CP (Benítez et al 2006;Knoke et al 2008a;Clasen et al 2011). Given the assumption that farmers are risk-averse, our goal here is to assess which method provides the more cost-effective CP.…”